Staff: Director

Kevin LaNave is founder as well as the current director of the Center for Service-Learning and Social Change.

His professional background includes:

  • (1980-1985) Youth minister at the St Cloud Children's Home, a residential treatment center for emotionally disturbed youth
  • (1985-2003) Teacher in the Religious Studies Department at Cathedral High School/ John XXIIIrd Middle School in St Cloud. Primary responsibilities were the courses in "Christian Social Justice" and "Christian Morality", and supervision of the school's community-service program (which was required of all 11th and 12th graders). He was also dept chairperson from 1991-1998.
  • (1997-2001) Coordinator (a part-time position) of the Julianne Williams Foundation for Social Justice, a foundation located in St Cloud designed to empower students interested in social-justice forms of learning and action. Primary responsibilities included mentoring of student-groups and collaboration with educators in area schools and faith-communities and staff in community-service organizations.

In addition to his work as the Center's director, Kevin is also:

  • (since September 2003) Service-learning coordinator (a part-time position) at the St Cloud Technical College. Responsibilities include: supporting faculty members and club advisors in further development of service-learning activities in their courses and programs, maintaining and expanding partnerships between the college and various community-organizations, and participating in the network of service-learning practitioners both in area schools and in colleges/universities around the state.
  • (since 2001) A peer-consultant for service-learning, hired by the Minnesota Dept of Children, Families and Learning. This position involves collaboration with staff in other schools, primarily in central MN, to support their efforts to integrate service-learning methodology into their curriculum and schools.
  • (since June 2004) Instructor in the "Civic Leadership Institute", an intensive three-week summer program in Baltimore, MD, for high school students, on civic engagement, contemporary social issues, and service-learning. (CLI is a collaboration between the Civic Education Project, located at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, and the Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore)

Kevin has provided workshops at a number of state and national conferences, including:

  • the National Service-Learning Conference (1991, 1998, 2003)
  • the Minnesota Catholic Education Association convention (1995, 1998)
  • the National Catholic Educational Association convention (1995, 1997)
  • national-level workshops sponsored by St Mary's Press (1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 200, 2001)
  • the Minnesota State Service-Learning Conference (2002, 2004)
  • the National Association of Multicultural Educators convention (2002)
  • the national C.O.O.L. conference (college-level organizing and activism), sponsored by Idealist.org (2005, 2006)

Kevin has also published curriculum at a national level, including:

  • author of the teacher's manual for the Saint Mary's Press "Christian Social Justice" course--entitled Christian Justice: Sharing God's Goodness--and consultant in the writing of the student text (published in 1995)
  • author of a 30-page monograph on "Catholic Schools as Faith Communities", including a significant section on service (published by St Mary's Press in 1997)
  • co-author of the revised manual and teacher consultant for the new student text from St Mary's Press entitled Living Justice and Peace (published in April 2001)
  • contributing writer to "Teens Acting for Peace" (TAP), a curriculum designed to assist youth in understanding and addressing issues of peace and violence in their schools, communities, and in the broader society and world (published by the Institute for Peace and Justice, St Louis, MO, in 2001)
  • primary contributing writer of "If Only Today You Knew . . . The Things That Make for Peace", a curriculum on peace-making for Christian faith-based schools and churches for grades K-8 and 9-12 (published by the Institute for Peace and Justice, St Louis, MO, in 2002)